So last week was my 9 year wedding anniversary. I had actually planned on posting this post on that day, but let’s be honest my whole Christmas post schedule has already gone to s**t so the less said about that the better!

I knew I wanted to write an anniversary post, but didn’t want to interrupt the Christmassy themed content. When Louise from With Love from Lou tagged me in the Christmas Tag, I came up with the idea of turning it into a bit of a couples tag. In the interest of trying something different, rather than just getting Mr Mess to write answers to the questions I sat him down with a voice recorder and we had a very Christmassy discussion.

Here is the (almost) unedited)transcript:

Mrs: So, we’re just going to have a chat about…

Mr: (interrupting) Boobs!

Mrs: No, not boobs. We’re going to talk about Christmas. Ok, so

What’s your favourite Christmas movie?

Mr: Err, anything from Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit. Or The Box of Delights which isn’t a movie so is a bit of a cop-out. If I had to pick an actual Christmas themed movie it would be Muppets Christmas Carol.

Mrs: Ah, yeah. You see, I would have said mine was Miracle on 34th Street ‘cos that’s what we used to watch when I was a kid..

Mr: But then I came in with Muppets Christmas Carol

Mrs: But than you said Muppets Christmas Carol

Mr: Which you realise was actually better

Mrs: So now I want that!

Mr: Sorry, I picked it first.

Have you ever had a white Christmas?

Mr: Yes! Yeah, more than one. One when I was a very small child and we looked after the school guinea pig and it died. That’s a coincidence, the white Christmas didn’t kill it. I remember my Dad out in the snow on Christmas morning, digging a grave in the snow before he went to church.

Mrs: Oh, nice!

Mr: So that’s a beautiful memory.

Mrs: I think I have but I really don’t remember it.

Mr: We’ve had one! When we went outside at Mum’s house and danced around in the snow.

Mrs: Well, sort of, it snowed on Christmas Eve didn’t it?

Mr: Yeah.

Mrs: I wouldn’t have thought of that as…

Mr: A white Christmas? Christmas Eve into Christmas Day is usually thought of as Christmas.

Mrs: Yeah, you’re right. Good point, well made.

Where do you usually spend your holiday?

Mr: Err, I try and spend as much of it as possible at home, but very often we end up at my mother’s and your mother’s for some of it.

Mrs: Yeah, we used to always do Christmas Eve with your Mum, Christmas Day at ours and Boxing Day at my Mum’s and then it kind of got more mushy than that, didn’t it?

Mr: Yeah.

Mrs: But this year that is what we’re going to do again, right?

Mr: Yeah.

Mrs: That’s the plan.

Mr: As much as possible we’ll be at home.

What is your favourite Christmas song?

Mr: Hmmmm, that’s a good one.

Mrs: All I Want For Christmas is you, right?

Mr: Er, no. Fairytale of New York possibly. Err, if it’s a carol it would be Holly and The Ivy.

Mrs: Mine would probably be Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, either the Judy Garland version from Meet Me In St. Louis, which is kind of sad or Ella Fitzgerald as that was out first dance.

Mr: Yes, I could go for that as well, that’s very difficult. I’d have to do it in categories.

Do you open any presents on Christmas Eve?

Both: We used to!

Mr: We used to open one present on Christmas Eve but as we’ve got older and we’ve got kids it’s become, sort of, less important.

Mrs: Yeah, we always used to do one didn’t we?

Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer?

Mrs: No!! (Laughs)

Mr: Well, that depends entirely on what you’re taking as the canon reindeer. Dasher and Dancer and Donner and Blitzen

Mrs; Comet, Cupid

Mr: Prancer and Vixen

Mrs: And the happiest reindeer of all… (More laughing)

Mr: It was Adolf, the racist reindeer. (More laughing. I’ve completely lost it by now)

Mrs: I don’t know, is that all of them?

Mr: Rudolph. Yeah, but I mean who are the canon reindeer?

Mrs: What do you mean, canon reindeer?

Mr: Who decides who a fictional character’s reindeer are? ‘Cos from the poem “The Night Before Christmas” it’s “Up Dasher, Up Dancer, Up Donner and Blitzen”, that’s where those names come from.

Mrs; Then Comet and Cupid and Prancer and Vixen.

Mr: Yeah but Rudolph then comes later.

Mrs: So are there only nine then?

Mr: Yes, if you count Rudolph but he came in the song much later.

Mrs; Right, I didn’t know that.

Mr: Look, you’ve got to agree..

Mrs: So the answer is “Yes, but we can’t agree which ones they are.”

Mr: I can name as many as I like. I can name Derek and Susan and Brian and Tina.

Mrs: Ok, moving on…

Mr: Are they immortal? He’s immortal, are they? Does he replace them every year? Has he ever crashed one, had to have it shot?

Mrs: Shush!

What holiday traditions are you looking forward this year?

Mr: Just getting it over. No!!

Mrs: (laughing hysterically) I really wish we’d filmed this for Youtube now as it would have been really funny!

Mr: Apparently, you find it funny! Are you high? Christmas dinner is a big tradition for me that I really enjoy ‘cos I love cooking it. The carols from Kings. That’s very important to me. The obvious ones, like watching the kids open their presents.

Mrs: Watching me open my presents is more important.

Mr: Christmas pudding and lighting it.

Mrs: That’s fun. Erm, I like Carols by Candlelight. We didn’t do it last year.

Mr: When we actually go to it.

Mrs: Yes, when we actually get there. I’d love the tradition of going to midnight mass, but we haven’t started that one yet.

Mr: It’s too tiring. That’s alright if I’m not getting up ’till 11am the next day. A man needs his sleep, dammit!

Mrs: What other traditions do we have? I don’t really know.

Mr: There’s stuff that’s pre-Christmas, like putting the tree up.

Mrs: I guess the masquerade is becoming a kind of tradition.

Mr: Yeah, Chatsworth masquerade.

Is your Christmas tree real or fake?

Mr: Fake!

Mrs: It is very fake. End of question.

Mr: I’d only get a real one if it could be planted afterwards. I don’t like killing trees for Christmas.

Mrs: I just can’t be bothered with the hassle.

What is your favourite holiday treat/food/sweet?

Mrs: Yeah, am I a mince pie kind of girl? I do love a mince pie. I’m trying to think what is the food that every Christmas I’m like “I have to eat that”. I do love my Christmas dinner. Christmas dinner is just brilliant. Anyway…

Be honest, do you like giving or receiving gifts better?

Mr: Giving, there’s not that much I want.

Mrs: I probably like both equally. I love to get presents…

Mr: You like receiving, just be honest.

Mrs: I love to get presents, but I do love picking presents for other people, it’s awesome!.

Mr: You just like buying stuff.

What is the best Christmas present you ever received?

Mr: Your hand in marriage, my love.

Mrs: That’s good. That’s going to be an answer to a later question for me.

Mr: Actual best Christmas present? That’s a really difficult one, ‘cos like stuff that you got when you’re a kid..

Mr: I think stuff you got when you were a kid and you go “Yeah, that’s amazing”

Mrs: You see, I think for me, more than the actual present itself, it’s the experience that went with it so like when Dad bought us a PC but did a treasure hunt around the house to find it, that was something that really sticks in my mind as being amazing and it wasn’t necessarily the present itself. It was how the present was given.

Mr: I mean Lego when I was a kid, that was a massive, massive deal to me.

Mrs: Yeah, you just tend to get books and stuff, don’t you?

Mr: But I love books. Opening a new Terry Pratchett on a Christmas morning and just get stuck in, that was always fantastic. I’m not a very stuff driven guy so it’s hard to say best Christmas present.

What would be your dream place to visit for the holiday season?

Mr: Somewhere with a log fire.

Mrs: Mine’s dead easy.

Mr: Disney?

Mrs: DISNEY!!!! It would look so pretty all decked out.

Mr: Oh jeez! Well, I suppose as a hub of complete, corporate fakery in a time that is full of corporate fakery, it’s so appropriate. A temple to consumerism.

Mrs: But Disney is so pretty anyway it would just look better at Christmas.

Mr: (In a fake Mickey voice) It’s so magical, if you can afford it! It’s magical for those who have the money. That’s what Christmas is really about.

Are you a pro-present wrapper or do you fail miserably?

Mr: Hmm, I wouldn’t say I’m in the top league but I can wrap.

Mrs: I put in a bit of effort but I don’t think I’m naturally very good. And God help you if your present is not square ‘cos that’s just a disaster.

Most memorable Christmas memory

Mrs: Got to be getting engaged, right? Christmas Eve proposal.

Mr: That time I got attacked by a bear in the woods. (At this point, Mr M went off on an inappropriate tangent that I can’t possibly transcribe here. Bloody typical!) Err, yeah, getting engaged, that’s very memorable.

What made you realise the truth about Santa?

Mr: Erm, I cannot remember one particular thing that made me realise the truth. I think a process of logical deduction, going “This is just nuts. This cannot be and I’m living in a world where people are telling me magical things don’t happen except this one incredibly magical thing which if it’s true turns the entirety of everything we understand about the world on its head. That definitely happens.” Oh, Live Aid, probably.

Mrs: Live Aid?

Mr: That really put the tin lid on it, going so why doesn’t Santa just fly his magical sledge to all these starving children and hand out, well, my attitude would be, you know, mince pies and stuff, at least it’s food! He’s getting them at every house, just oh yeah, right because it’s not true.

Mrs: I just feel like I always knew.

Mr: Guess what, poor people don’t get any presents! They must have been naughty.

Mrs: I don’t remember a time when I didn’t kind of know. I feel like I just knew.

Mr: Yeah, I think it is very much one of those things where you sort of get the feeling everyone’s playing a game here but…

Mrs: I think Freya (Miss Mess) kind of knows. She occasionally says things. But I got into trouble for telling everybody at school that he wasn’t real when I was in primary school, so I’m considering it must have been pretty young when I figured it out.

Last question, what makes the holidays special for you?

Mr: What, they want one answer? Tradition.

Mrs: Well, it doesn’t have to be one word. You can

Mr: Tradition, kindness.

Mrs: You see, I just think I like it because it’s just a happy time. And I know it’s not for everybody but for me it just feels very warm and fuzzy and I feel like I’m walking around in a Christmas film.

Mr: I get a feeling that I don’t often get in life that I’m unified with other people or something. Because I’m very often not unified. I’m not into football like a lot of blokes are, so I don’t get that. I don’t watch X Factor, I don’t follow the soaps but there is one thing going on in the country where I go “Yeah I’m on board with this. I also do this.”

Mrs: I think I just like the whole kind of event, the colours and the lights and the presents. Just everyone coming together and, like you said, doing the same thing at the same time, it’s just nice.

Mr: Yeah you get a feeling that a lot of people are making an effort to do the same stuff and that makes me feel part of something. And there’s the more weird, mystical side of it, the mythology.

Mrs: I suppose it’s the history as well. It’s something you experience as a kid that you then pass on to your children.

Mr: Yeah, a tradition that builds up a sense of history for yourself and your community, your country.

Mrs: We got very deep.

Mr: It’s to deep for your blog, keep things light! “I just like glitter and spices”

Mrs: Anyway, thank you very much. That was very useful.

And there you have it. The Christmas Tag: Couples Edition. We had a real giggle making this post. I’m thinking we should possibly do a podcast!

I tag the following lovely ladies to do the Christmas Tag next. Inclusion of partners is optional…